Kurt Angle on Rumor That He & Vince Russo Tried to Take Over TNA Creative

On a recent episode of The Kurt Angle Show, Angle talked about the final months of 2007 during his run with TNA Wrestling. Angle discussed wanting to put over Jay Lethal, the rumored creative takeover attempt with Vince Russo and his legal troubles. Below are some highlights.

On putting over Jay Lethal but creative not wanting to do it: “They took the title from him and everything. It was like they were trying to scold me, but they scolded Jay it was ridiculous. He was suppose to win anyway, there was just suppose to be a bunch of distractions during the match. Somebody was going to come in and bonk me over the head and Jay would’ve won. I didn’t want Jay to win that way. Are you going create a star by making a guy win by someone else coming in and doing some kind of physicality to the person and the other person wins the match? That isn’t how Jay is going to be a bigger star. I wanted to make Jay that night and that’s what I did. They took it right from him the next day, which was ridiculous.”

On wrestling Abyss: “Oh, I loved working with Abyss. He’s one of the best big guys I ever got in the ring with. He’s safe. As dangerous as he looks and all the dangerous stuff he does, he is a thousand percent safe. We were suppose to have some interferences in that match too, but I called that off, too. Not that I was trying to get myself over because I won the match, but Abyss and I were like ‘we don’t need distractions lets just have a straight up match’ and that’s what we did.”

On wrestling three matches at No Surrender 2007: “I felt like utter s***. I really did. I was sore for about a week. It was tough. Doing those three matches I probably put in forty-five minutes of wrestling. It was tough. I’m not going to lie to you.”

On stalking Sting’s son to build to Bound For Glory: “That’s Vince Russo. I actually went to California and I kind of beat up on the kid at a football game. He had a game on a Saturday. Sting was there and it was ridiculous. Stalking his son and telling Sting when his son gets done with the game I’m going to whip his sons ass. It was just ridiculous.”

On rumors that he attempted to take over Creative with Vince Russo: “No I could tell you this, there are rumors sometimes and there’s the truth. That’s a complete rumor. I didn’t even know about that. Vince and I had no intention of taking anything from anybody. Maybe Vince did, I don’t know. I don’t know if Vince did this, I don’t think he did. He probably said ‘hey, Kurt and I want to takeover Dixie and we want to take Jeff out. Vince Russo got along with Jeff (Jarrett), too. So, I just don’t see how that came to be.”

On being arrested for a DUI: “I was having a tough time. I was making horrible decision. Irresponsible decisions. Getting four DUIs in five years was just ridiculous. When you’re doing that, you know you have a problem. I didn’t want to admit it until I ended up going to rehab in 2013. It took me awhile to come to my gripes, but eventually I did.”

If you use any of the quotes in this article, please credit 83 Weeks with a h/t to 411mania.com for the transcription.